This paper presents a snapshot of the distribution of time that Spanish academic staff spend on different tasks. We carry out a statistical exploratory study by analyzing the responses provided in a survey of 703 Spanish academic staff in order to draw a clear picture of the current situation. This analysis considers many factors, including…

This paper reports on an investigation into how staff teaching in compressed courses can encourage student engagement and enhance student use of learning time, despite significant restraints of time as well as distance. Typically these courses (described here as units) are expected to have comparable learning outcomes to their full-semester…

Various researchers in second language acquisition have argued for the effectiveness of immediate rather than delayed feedback. In writing, truly immediate feedback is impractical, but computer-assisted feedback provides a quick way of providing feedback that also reduces the teacher's workload. We explored the accuracy of feedback from…

For many instructors in higher education, use of a learning management system (LMS) is de facto mandatory. Nevertheless, instructors often have much freedom in deciding which functionalities of the LMS they use; that is, whether they perform each individual instructor task using the LMS. Alternatively, they may perform one specific instructor task…

Distance education course designers working alone often do not have the luxury of fully developing their instruction before releasing their courses to students. The Individual Iterative Instructional Design (I3D) model is useful for educators who both develop and present their distance learning instructional units in areas ranging from higher…

Technology has made available to teachers and students a broader array of tools than ever before to enhance fundamental goals of education, including critical thinking, problem solving, and communication. While some educators have enthusiastically embraced these tools and continually seek ways to enhance student learning through their use, others…

Monitoring the learning process in computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments is a key element for supporting the efficacy of tutor actions. This article proposes an approach for analysing learning processes in a CSCL environment to support tutors in their monitoring tasks. The approach entails tracking the interactions within…

For a university in regional Australia, a new degree program offered through a remote campus and access centres, provided a supportive environment for faculty to try out new teaching and learning methods, specifically making use of a learning management system (WebCT) for aspects of communication and content. This article examines the impact this…

Purpose: The application of a new technology (YouTube) can help lecturers in solving some of the issues related to workload and shifts support to students by giving them more responsibilities in their assessment. The purpose of this paper is to re-characterize the role of the students in the assessment process. Design/methodology/approach:…

The decision to increase distance education enrollment hinges on the factors of pedagogical effectiveness, interactivity, audience, faculty incentives, retention, program type, and profitability. A complex interplay exists among these scalability concerns (i.e., issues related to meeting the growing enrollment demand), and any program's approach…

Driven by advances in instructional technologies, the processes of teaching and learning have come under new scrutiny in recent years. Some have called for renewed interest among faculty in the "scholarship of teaching", whereby a portion of their time goes to assessing their pedagogical styles and seeking technology-enhanced…

The rationalisation of class sizes and subject offerings in majors, and the implementation of workloads models establishing parity in teaching hours and in student load per staff member across Faculty have created considerable challenges for tertiary foreign-language teaching over the past decade. This paper presents one way of responding to the…